The Wargamer

Author:  Dan Abnett

Reviewing Author:  Jim Zabek

Gamers familiar with the Warhammer universe will need no introduction to Dan Abnett.  For those unfamiliar with the Warhammer game universe, however, some introductions are in order. 

Warhammer 40000 began as a sci-fi miniatures wargame a little over two decades ago.  Since then it has become an iconic game – almost a rite of passage for young (and young at heart) miniatures gamers.  The game system has blossomed into a kind of subculture, and includes not only the miniatures game, but also a series of spin-off tabletop games that allow various degrees of storytelling, and range from settings with individuals battling foes in cities to spaceship combat held in the void above.  A number of PC games have also been released, not the least of which is the Dawn of War series.  There is also a growing library of fiction set in the gaming universe, and it is to one of these books I would like to discuss today.

The books naturally reflect an image of the game Warhammer 40000 game system.   Set some 38,000 years in the future, a glimpse into this world finds mankind so evolved he cannot remember a time when he has not traveled through space.  The technology that man uses in this era is so old that it is both revered and suspected at the same time, and much more has been forgotten than can be remembered or used.  The setting is gothic – dark, violent, dramatic.  To describe things much further would require significant analysis; the Warhammer universe is rich material from which academics could mine the greater subconscious of the collective gaming id that lurks beneath all gaming veneers.  (And if you write your doctoral thesis on this topic, I’d like appropriate credit).

Ahem.  Anyway.  It should be clear that someone can go off the deep end chasing the genesis of half-baked ideas down the rat holes of a violent, sci-fi universe that in the end is created and perpetuated for entertainment rather than logical form.  In other words, it’s a game, dummy.

Nevertheless, I will attempt to undertake a serious review of Titanicus, not because it is a weighty work of fiction that will rival Shakespeare’s place in English Literature, but rather because it is the first book set in the Warhammer 40000 universe that I have found that seems to need some interpretation, even for those reasonably well-versed in the Warhammer library of writings. 

The Black Library is the publishing arm of Games Workshop, and they have a fine collection of both writers and writings.  As I said, this isn’t necessarily Shakespearian-grade literature, but it would be wrong to dismiss it casually.  Putting aside the violent nature of the material (there is a hefty dose of limbs being hacked off in every book – what else would you expect?) and the grim setting of the future, Black Library publishes solidly entertaining material.  I’ve probably accumulated two dozen books over the last six months from them, and each is entertaining.  Certainly some are better than others; there are bound to be variations due to personal preferences and the strengths of each writer, but none has been a disappointment.  They are a kind of guilty pleasure for me – an indulgence of brain candy that I enjoy in the evenings to break up an otherwise hefty diet of military history.  All work and no play, as they say.

Of the stable of writers that Black Library can lay claim to, few writers are as enjoyable and prolific as Dan Abnett.  He has written a stunning number of books.  Most of the fiction published by Black Library is in paperback – affordable and readable, these novels can be found in most gaming shops that carry the Warhammer games, and most large book retailers now carry them, too.  Titanicus is somewhat of an anomaly, being published in hardcover.  Hardcover books, as most of us are aware, are priced significantly higher than paperbacks, so even though I had seen it available for sale, it took some time for me to make the decision to buy it.

Word of mouth is often the best advertising, and as I noted above, if you ask most anyone who reads Warhammer 40000 fiction, they will be hard-pressed to tell you of one they didn’t enjoy.  The first time you pick one up, however, there is a learning curve to adjust to.  After all, traveling 38,000 years into the future, the reader has a bit of catching up to do.  Most things are immediately recognizable, but there is a vocabulary used by its writers that, while intelligible, may ring foreign at first:  vox is the voice communication; astropaths are psychic navigators; magnoculars are binoculars; xenos are aliens; rockcrete is concrete.  All of this vocabulary can be learned in the context of the books and none is particularly baffling or problematic enough to stop the flow of the books.  There is a kind of retro to it, also, with references often having roots in Latin. 

Titianicus, however, takes this one step further, and it is for this reason that I felt inclined to review it.  Most of the books published by Black Library focus on the Space Marines.  There are exceptions – there is a series on the Imperial Guard, and Abnett’s Eisenhorn is a wonderful and fresh look at the world through the eyes of an Inquisitor.  Most of these perspectives are easily accessed from the perspective of human eyes.  But with Titanicus, Abnett has chosen to see the universe through the eyes of the Mechanicum – these are the humans that maintain the machines of the Imperium; the techies and geeks of Warhammer. 

Anyone non-technical who ever found themselves in the IT department seeking help has eventually been immersed in a foreign world.  Get a couple of techies in a room and let them start chatting, and pretty soon you may be lost in the language.  I know, I’m a techie myself.  It continually amazes me how quickly I can lose someone in a conversation about some of the simplest things.

Dan Abnett has clearly appreciated this perspective.  Titanicus’ perspective from the eyes of the Mechanicum flirts with leading the reader quite over his head.  This starts from the very beginning – chapters are number not in Arabic numerals but in binary.  The first sentence isn’t set in English syntax, but as high-level machine code, “<[exloaded from] Crusius, magos executor fetial, Legio Invicta (110011001101, code compression zy) [supplementary data modules appended, stream 2] [begins]”

And there it is: the crux of the criticism of Titanicus.  While many of the Warhammer 40000 books have their own vocabulary, most are written to allow for those readers unfamiliar with the game to figure out what’s going on.  In Titanicus, however, Abnett’s approach is different.  The novel is written from the perspective of people who, while human, are often more machine than human.  Dialog is written in English, but Abnett often presents it as a blurt of binary, as one machine squawks to another as a old-fashioned dial-up modem might squawk in a handshake to another.  Some vocabulary is simply never explained (what’s a noosphere?).  The principle complaint I’ve heard of Titanicus is that much of the vocabulary used by Abnett is left unexplained.  That, to me, was the entire point of the book: the reader is human, tossed into the techie world of the Mechanicum.  Like the visitor to the IT department, the reader is sometimes going to go on adventure where he’s momentarily lost while those who handle the technology sort things out.  I liked this approach, and found Titanicus more interesting for the experience.  What did he mean when the leader said, “We will walk.”?  Eventually the reader will come to learn that it means the huge Titan war machines will fight (walk) on the world in question.  For them, the simple act of walking – as opposed to spending long, indefinite times in suspended animation traveling from world to world and war to war – becomes the operative word for the Mechanicum’s Titans. 

This perspective, while sometimes obtuse for the reader, creates a perspective that feels tangibly different from that seen by the Space Marines, Imperial Guard, or Inquisitors.  Titanicus is about the huge war machines that rarely appear in the novels or even in the game.  Yet when they do, even one can turn the tide of battle.  When an entire Legion of them walks, the consequences are epic.  Dan Abnett does a fine job of setting the state for the gargantuan, technical struggle of man-machines against one another.  Readers shouldn’t let the occasional undefined term put them off.  The book marches on, and so do the Titans.  The action is epic, as befits a book centered around Titans.  And who knows?  The curious reader might even learn a new vocabulary word or two. 

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